Snapchat for Business: The Ultimate Marketing Guide

It’s 2019—and Snapchat still has about 188 million active daily users.

But it’s also still dwarfed by Instagram—which has 500 million daily users—and probably always will be.

And that begs the question: why should your business invest in capturing attention and building an audience on Snapchat, the demonstrably less popular platform?

Let me explain.

As of 2018, about 45 percent of Snapchat users are 18 – 24 years old and 71 percent are under 34 years old. That means Snapchat is still extremely popular among Millennials. So if your goal is to engage a younger demographic, Snapchat can be a potent source of engagement.

Source: ComScore

Also, Snapchat users create 3 billion videos a day, spending an average of 30 minutes on the platform. Those numbers—coupled with Snapchat’s impressive audience targeting capabilities—suggest big opportunities for brands and marketers.

Don’t have a Snapchat for Business account?

Let’s set you up…

Bonus:Download a free guide that reveals the steps to create custom Snapchat geofilters and lenses, plus tips on how to use them to promote your business.

How to set up a Snapchat for Business account

If you choose to advertise on Snapchat, you’ll need a business account.

If you don’t have an account, create one here. Then fill in your business details.

Like most actions on Snapchat, creating a business account is simple and intuitive. Once your business is established, you’ll be prompted to create a campaign. Of course, this is optional. As a business, you don’t need to advertise on the platform to garner attention, build an audience, and make an impact.

Onward.

7 essential Snapchat marketing tips for business

Yes, allocating spend to your content will improve its reach.

That said, there are other strategies you can use to optimize your marketing on Snapchat. These are time-tested, proven tactics and principles social media marketers can apply to grow virtually any brand.

If you’re new to Snapchat, be sure to read our beginner’s guide. It will help you learn the technical skills necessary to apply these strategies.

But if you already know the fundamentals, stay put. You’re in the right place. These tips will help you make the most of your presence.

Let’s go:

1. Identify your audience via Snapchat Insights

As a marketer, your audience is everything. But your audience is not everyone.

Your audience is a group of people who all share the same want. And, maybe, they all share a unique blend of characteristics. For example, your audience may live in a specific location; your audience may speak a specific language; your audience may make a specific income.

The better you understand these characteristics, the better you’ll be at creating good copy and art that captures attention, incites interest, creates desire, and compels action.

You may already know your audience, in which case you’re ahead. But if you’re still working to understand who to target, use Snapchat Insights. This is the platform’s built-in analytics tool, which, among other statistics, can tell you:

Your viewer count over weeks, months, and years

Your viewers’ age, location, gender, and even interests

Your viewers’ attention span (i.e., how many people watched your content until the very end)

Make it “Specific”

Make it “Measurable”

For example, it’s not enough to say, “I want to increase engagement on Snapchat.”

Instead, you should say, “I want to drive my screenshot count up by 12% and my fall-off rate down by 5%.”

Make it “Attainable”

For example, you can’t say, “We’ve never done it before, but I still want this type of content to drive 100 new Millennial followers per month.”

Instead, you have to say, “Introducing this type of content added 50 Millennial followers to our account, so if we double down on this content next month, we’ll be on track to add 100 new female followers.”

Make it “Relevant”

For example, if you want to use Snapchat to grow your mailing list, it doesn’t make sense to create objectives around screenshot counts.

Instead, it makes more sense to focus on driving followers to your website, where they can sign up for your newsletter.

The latter is far more relevant and applicable to your business goals.

Make it “Timely”

For example, it’s not enough to say, “we’ll have these changes implemented sometime in Q2.”

Instead, it’s more effective if you say, “we’ll have these changes implemented by May 15.”

The S.M.A.R.T. goal framework will keep you honest and focused as you create marketing objectives.

3. Conduct a competitive analysis

If you want to know where you’re excelling and where you’re falling short, study your competitors.

That is, conduct a competitive analysis by analyzing the accounts and activities of other brands in your space. Here’s how to do that, step-by-step:

Step 1: Identify your competition

The best way to identify a competitor is by analyzing your audience.

Who else is your audience following? Do any of those brands resemble your own? Those that do are vying for your prospects’ attention. But not every competing brand is worth analyzing.

Start by creating a long list, then pare it down. Choose three or four strong competitors to benchmark yourself against.

Step 2: Dig in

Now it’s time to research, taking several metrics into consideration, including:

Presence

Are your competitors active on every social network? Or only a couple?

Following

How many people are following your competitors? And how quickly is each following growing?

Cadence

How often do your competitors post?

Engagement

How many likes, retweets, shares, and comments do your competitors’ average?

Now it’s time to analyze this raw data.

Step 3: SWOT

SWOT stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Strengths

Analyze to understand what your competitors are doing well on Snapchat? Are their posts timely or interesting or clever? What strategies can you borrow?

Weaknesses

Analyze where your competitors are falling short. Is their cadence slow or inconsistent? Are their posts to self-serving? What can you avoid?

Opportunities

Given your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, where can you differentiate yourself? For example, if there’s no humor in the landscape, can you insert some?

Threats

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Identify these instances and be prepared for them.

The best Snapchat Stories are typical yet surprising. That is, they follow a standard narrative arc: rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. But they’re also unexpected, delivering humor or suspense or educational value. In any case, viewers should walk away from your Story pleasantly surprised, delighted even.

To create this effect, many businesses create “behind-the-scenes” Stories, providing content followers would otherwise never see. You can also ask questions, create polls, and conduct interviews to engage audiences.

Whatever content you choose to create, remember to keep it light and, of course, authentic. Snapchat users appreciate authenticity. It’s the reason many started using the platform in the first place.

Users also appreciate high-quality imagery. Here are several important Snapchat specs to follow:

5. Build your audience

Snapchat doesn’t have “Suggested User” lists like Instagram, which makes it harder to build an audience.

That’s why it’s important to make your Snapchat account as discoverable as possible.

As a business, be sure to promote your presence using your handle and Snapchat icons that link back to snapchat.com/add/yourusername. You could also use your unique, scannable Snapcode.

Here are the top 5 places to promote your Snapchat:

1. Your website

Your Snapchat icon should go in your website’s header, footer, and sidebar. It should also be present on your “Contact” page.

2. Your email signature

Conventional wisdom says that the second most read part of an email—after the subject line—is the signature. That’s because 1) most people will immediately scroll to the bottom of an email to see who wrote it and 2) it visually stands out on the page.

This means your email signature is extremely visible, which makes it the perfect place to display your Snapchat icon.

3. Your newsletter

Again, your Snapchat icon should go in the header or footer of your newsletter. It should be visible and prominent.

4. Your advertisements

This includes digital and print ads. If your goal is to amass as many Snapchat followers as possible, don’t be shy. Display your Snapcode everywhere.

5. Your event booths

If you attend trade shows or conferences, make sure your Snapcode is somewhere accessible, where visitors can see and scan it (e.g., shoulder-height on your booth).

It’s also important to post consistently and at the right time. Snapchat users check-in about 20 times per day, averaging about 30 minutes per day on the platform. Use Snapchat Insights to figure out when your audience is most active, then post regularly at that time.

7. Measure results

Snapchat analytics will help you understand your audience, learn what content performs best, and discover key engagement times. The better you know this information, the easier it’ll be to gain a competitive edge in the market.

Sponsored Geofilters

On-Demand Geofilters

This is the cheapest, easiest, fastest way to get started with Snapchat advertising.

It’s like a Sponsored Geofilter, but can be used in an ultra-tight area, like a city block. You can create one in a minute—and pay as little as 5 dollars to push it live. It’s an excellent option for small businesses.

Snapchat is a simple, easy-to-use platform. But there are many nuances to advertising on the platform.

About the Author

Eddie Shleyner is a direct response copywriter, content strategist, and the founder of VeryGoodCopy.com, where he publishes content about the art and science of written persuasion. You can find his bylines at Forbes, Hubspot, The Workforce Blog, and more.